Posted on 02/10/2020 5:06:34 AM PST by BenLurkin
In northwest Europe, meanwhile, the Viking game Hnefatafl popped up in such far-flung locales as Scotland, Norway and Iceland. Farther south, the ancient Egyptian games of Senet and Mehen dominated. To the east in India, Chaturanga emerged as a precursor to modern chess. And 5,000 years ago, in what is now southeast Turkey, a group of Bronze Age humans created an elaborate set of sculpted stones hailed as the world’s oldest gaming pieces upon their discovery in 2013.
Senet is one of the earliest known board games. Archaeological and artistic evidence suggest it was played as early as 3100 B.C., when Egypt’s First Dynasty was just beginning to fade from power.
According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, upper-class members of Egyptian society played Senet using ornate game boards, examples of which still survive today. Those with fewer resources at their disposal made do with grids scratched on stone surfaces, tables or the floor.
Senet boards were long and lithe, consisting of 30 squares laid out in three parallel rows of ten. Two players received equal numbers of gaming tokens, usually between five to seven, and raced to send all of their pieces to the end of the board. Rather than rolling dice to determine the number of squares moved, participants threw casting sticks or bones. As in most complex strategy games, players had the opportunity to thwart their opponent, blocking the competition from moving forward or even sending them backward on the board.
Earlier game boards boast completely blank playing squares, but in most later versions, the final five squares feature hieroglyphics denoting special playing circumstances. Pieces that landed in square 27’s “waters of chaos,” for example, were sent all the way back to square 15—or removed from the board entirely.
(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...
Pretty neat!
Hound and Jackals, 1956 “The Ten Commandments”:
http://www.google.com/search?q=hounds+and+jackals+1956+the+ten+commandments
tnx
What about Go?
One year around 1972, the checkers world championship was held in Asheville, N.C. The winner was also a chess master. He had once played Bobby Fisher to a draw.
My pleasure.
Thanks, wiki-wacky sez it's about 2500 years old.
Can’t immediately recall, but may have been Smith. Noted for the Smith-Morra chess gambit. An early white gambit in the Sicilian Defense.
Did people who passed on playing Go collect $200?
Thanks. That is the vase I had in mind. But when do players call out numbers when playing checkers?
Hate the game, not the playahs.
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